Bronze

Chapter 14 pt.2

Kane

"Where is she?" My voice rang out within the concrete room, echoing back to my ears a second later. 

The guard that Katherine had stationed outside trembled before me. He pointed down the hallway, down to the last cell at the back. A cell meant for a criminal. A cell for someone to rot in, forgotten by society. 

I didn't bother thanking him. As far as I was concerned, he would be fired and sent back home with nothing after I was done. 

A metal chain rattled in the distance. The spicy cinnamon of her scent drove me toward her, calling to me as no other scent had before. 

My large set of keys dangled from my hip, the small individual keys clinking together as I marched. I always carried a set of keys with me wherever I went. I had a bronze key for the house, one for the equipment shed out back, one for the garage and the cars inside, and one for each cell in the prison ward. 

The prison ward was below the packhouse, and most of the reoccurring residence would call it the basement, even though most of the ward itself stuck leftward of the house. Outside, it looked like a large slab of concrete with blocks surrounding it. A metal fence incased it just as a secondary precaution. 

Most of the cells I walked passed were empty. One had a sleeping old man who had been caught stealing, and another had a murderer. I would release the older man soon after his sentence was up. I didn't do well with killers. He would stay longer before I handed him off to the human authorities. 

The rattling of the chain became more urgent. I ran then, and when I made it to her cell I almost wept.

She was in her wolf form, so beautiful and vibrant. 

She was sitting on her back legs, her tail tucked under her left foot. There was a large aluminum chain around her neck, lifting her head high in the air despite drooping her eyes to look at me.

When I appeared in her line of vision, she jumped up on all fours and tried to back away, failing miserably because of the thing chaining her to the ceiling. She must have been having the same weird sense of deja vu that I was having. The scene was all too familiar. 

"I'm not going to hurt you, Leah," I said to her calmly, reaching out my hand in a gesture that one would give to a frightened animal. She reared back her head and stumbled on her own feet. Her whimper was devastating. 

Her wounds were still fresh, I observed seeing the fear in her golden eyes. What can I do to help her?

Her stomach grumbled, the sound barely reaching my own ears. Thinking quickly, I ordered the guard, who had lingered at the doorway watching me, to get me a thick, raw steak and a slab of chicken. He ran out the door with a confirming nod and not another word between us. 

I tried touching her again, afraid that if I opened her cell she would try and bite me. I stuck my whole arm through the bar slot, all the way up to my shoulder, and strained my fingers in order to meet her. 

"Come on," I pleaded. "Let me comfort you."

Her tail began to wag slowly. Back and forth, it moved from the stone floor to the air, hitting the wooden bench behind her and slapping the wall. Still hesitant, she lowered her head as much as she could, and leaned forward until the tip of her pink nose met my fingers.  

Her cell was the largest out of the twelve on this side of the prison ward. Inside, she had a small bench, strapped by leather bands and hooked to the wall, and a bucket. Two small windows on the back and right walls, not even the size of my hand, let minimal light through and allowed air to travel through the dank space.